‘That is generous of you, Bruno, but I will pay.’
‘No! I insist. It will be a gift from me to her, to celebrate all our good fortune: your presence here, her pregnancy, my success…’
Nicholas concedes graciously. When he goes in search of Bianca, to tell her of her cousin’s gracious offer, he finds her in the courtyard, writing a letter. It’s to Rose and Ned, she says – asking after the Jackdaw’s resurrection, telling them she will not be returning to England for some time. They are to open the tavern as soon as it is ready and run it without her. He considers asking her if she’s told them of her pregnancy, but he has second thoughts. He thinks he already knows the answer.
October slinks in like a starving wolf, wet and miserable, yet still able to bite. In the narrow lanes of Bankside yesterday’s rain has filled the open sewers with a scummy, stinking brown soup. A brisk wind flails the trees in the Pike Garden, blowing the dying leaves into sodden piles around the white plaster walls of the Rose theatre. It has rained for most of September. This, in conspiracy with the violent storms of spring, has pushed the price of wheat to almost eight shillings a bushel. Money is scarce. Rose Monkton is beginning to fear that when the Jackdaw does reopen, few in Southwark will have much above a farthing left over to spend in it. On top of everything else, the cost of keeping Ned in even a small measure of comfort at the Marshalsea is eating into the purse that Mistress Bianca entrusted to her for the rebuilding. Only yesterday Jenny Solver asked her if she’d lost weight. Rose just smiled. She hadn’t the courage to confess that she hasn’t slept soundly since the constable came and took her husband away.
Shortly after breakfast a liveried servant brings a message from John Lumley. He wants to meet her at the public fountain at the top of Fish Street Hill, on the north side of the Bridge. Noontime, if that is not inconvenient.
Wrapping herself in her thick winter cloak, Rose hurries across the river. She knows she will arrive ridiculously early, but thinks it better to fret there in the open air than alone in the Paris Garden lodgings.
She waits for more than an hour and a half, the minutes dragging by, not one of them bringing her the slightest ease. By the time she sees the tall figure in the dark cloak and the neatly starched ruff making his way towards her from Grass Street, a black cap with a jaunty peacock’s feather in it upon his head, Rose’s eyes are red from the constant rubbing of the kerchief that is now wedged, cold and wet, between her forearm and the fabric of her kirtle, as if something unpleasant from the river has crawled up her sleeve.
‘Forgive me if I am a little late, Mistress Rose,’ Lumley says. ‘My endowment of the chair of anatomy at the College of Physicians requires me to attend the occasional formal function. They tend to be tedious and last longer than I would prefer.’
Knowing there cannot be many other nobles in the land who would bother themselves for an instant with the problems of a former servant, Rose makes what she hopes will be a dignified curtsey. Her right foot slips on the cobbles and she ends up at a tilt on one knee, one hand around Lumley’s shin to stop herself from tumbling. Calmly he reaches down and lifts her to her feet.
‘Are you hurt, Rose?’
‘No, my lord. Well, yes, my lord, but in my heart, not my ankle.’
A troubled look floods his old grey eyes. ‘I fear I have not made the progress I had wished. You must be brave,’ he says gravely, like a priest attending a deathbed.
Rose feels as though she has just stepped off a cliff. She is tumbling, spinning to destruction, yet the buildings around the fountain remain fixed and constant in her sight. Her eyes well with tears again.
‘Do not give way to despair, Rose,’ Lumley says. ‘There is, perhaps, still hope. Come with me, and I will explain.’
The tavern he takes her to is on the east side of Fish Street Hill, at the corner of Little Eastcheap. It is a place Rose could never afford to drink in. The taproom boys are all smartly dressed, the customers languid and oddly silent. One or two glance her way with looks of disapproval. At any other time than this, she would probably stick her tongue out at them for their presumption that she is the old gentleman’s whore.
Lumley sits her down in an alcove and calls for two glasses of sack. Rose drinks with an unsteady hand.
‘Firstly, Rose,’ he begins, ‘we may give thanks that the Privy Council moves exceeding slow. It has not yet considered the magistrate’s suggestion that Ned be investigated for having sympathy with Dr Lopez’s alleged crime. They haven’t racked him yet, thank God.’
Rose emits a heavy sigh of relief. Lumley raises a hand to forestall any undue optimism.
‘I have appealed to Chief Justice Popham and Attorney General Coke to reconsider the verdict. I told them I believe your husband is innocent of manslaughter and acted merely in self-defence. I even offered to purchase an acquittal. I fear they refused. I think they did so in order to spite me. They cannot bear the thought that Her Grace the queen can favour an old papist like me. They were adamant. Ned must go to his death – by hanging, at Tyburn.’ He tries to calm another burst of noisy weeping by laying one hand gently on Rose’s arm. ‘Hush, child. I have more to tell you.’
Lumley takes a silk kerchief from his gown and dabs at her eyes. ‘I then sought an audience with Her Majesty,’ he continues. ‘She has read the letter of retraction that Vaesy wrote. She is confirmed in her belief that Dr Shelby is innocent of the charge made against him. But she has refused to pardon Ned.’
Rose’s face crumples with injured indignation. ‘But… but… ’e’s innocent too! Why will she not show us mercy?’
‘She fears that if a person of Ned’s humble station is excused the violent death of a knight of the realm, then any man of the lowest order might think it but a small matter to kill a duke – or a queen.’
‘Then my man is going to ’ang?’ Rose says in a small voice.
Lumley’s long grey face contorts in pity. He takes her hands in his, feels them tremble as though he were grasping a little animal that he might crush in error without even realizing. He says gently, ‘They haven’t sentenced him yet, so there could be a way to save him. It is not certain, and it will take luck and not a little skill – on all our parts. And it must be instigated quickly, before the sentence is formally given.’
‘What way?’ Rose mumbles miserably.
‘Ned must claim Benefit of Clergy.’
The sound that comes out of Rose’s mouth is a strangled mix of disbelief and desperation, as though Lumley has just suggested her husband sprout wings and fly away to safety.
‘Ned – plead the ’Oly Book?’ she gasps.
‘It is the only way. If he claims Benefit of Clergy, he will be exempt from temporal law. It will then fall upon the ecclesiastical courts to define the sentence. But it must be done between the verdict and the sentence. So I have taken the liberty of entering the plea for him. Thank God the magistrate did not pass an immediate judgement or he would already be dead.’
‘But no one could confuse Ned for a priest – no one!’
Lumley offers her a gentle smile of hope. ‘I know a chaplain who served my late father-in-law, the Earl of Arundel. He owes me a rather large favour. He has agreed to hear Ned’s submission. If all goes well, a branding is the customary sentence for a first crime, so long as it is less than treason. A severe hurt, I know, but a lot better than the alternative.’